Free Republic

Katrina left a lot of pine trees standing, but brown and lifeless. "Eighty to 100 percent of the trees were inundated with storm surge waters from Katrina as much as 12 miles inland and that has posed some serious threats to our public safety," Hancock County Extension Service Director Gwen Smith said. The dead trees are still standing because they don't meet the guidelines for removal. Only trees with broken tops or those leaning at a 30 degree angle can be removed by U.S. Army Corps of Engineer debris crews. County Supervisor David Yarborough says that's left many properties in...

NEW ORLEANS -- They clear rotten seafood from stinking restaurant freezers, wash excrement from the floors of the Superdome, rip out wads of soaked insulation. The work is hot, nasty and critical to the recovery of New Orleans. And yet, many of the workers are not actually from New Orleans. Many of those engaged in the huge cleanup and reconstruction effort here — nobody has an exact count — are immigrants, both legal and illegal, from Mexico and Central America. Meanwhile, as many as 80,000 New Orleanians sit idle in shelters around the country. They are out of work, homeless...

A new patented Tornado Generator(TM) accelerates compressed air to supersonic speeds in a closed cyclonic chamber where the air is powerful enough to almost instantly grind, flash desiccate and atomize solid and liquid wastes and other materials into micron sized powders. The Tornado Generator(TM) has no internal moving parts and is powered by compressed air. Needing only an appropriately sized generator and compressor, processing with the Tornado Generator(TM) is very robust and is capable of field operation. The technology can cost-effectively and rapidly process a very broad array of wastes including agricultural wastes, septic wastes, municipal solid wastes, and construction...

NEW ORLEANS, La. - (KRT) - Bernard Dunklin's pills sit next to a baby stroller. Glenn Dominick's legal papers flutter in the breeze. Susan Devlin's medical records are stuck to a water-damaged photo and an elementary school certificate of achievement for Samantha Devlin. "There's shoes, thousands of coolers, cots, clothes, it's all mixed up now," said Kevin Webb, after he dumped a truckload of garbage from the Superdome in a vacant lot a mile from downtown New Orleans. "There were a lot of people packed to leave, but then they couldn't take their stuff with them. It's all toxic now."...

Even hurricane relief workers need some relief. Which just happens to be local businessman Clayton Smith's line of work. Smith and his Waco-based B&S Portojons have contracted with the federal government to provide restrooms and showers for relief workers in the New Orleans area. Smith, 48, said his first transaction resulting from Hurricane Katrina came Thursday, when he got a call from a business in Tyler. B&S assembles and sells portable toilets in addition to renting them, and had supplied the Tyler company before. The owner was calling B&S because a contractor for the Federal Emergency Management Agency needed a...

Johnnie Lou Ingram, the zoning administrator at Picayune City Hall, is incensed. A neighbor started burning some of the debris around his home on Sunday and the fire got out of control nearly destroying her house and those of some her neighbors. Pine Grove and Nicholson Volunteer Fire Departments and the Mississippi Forestry Commission had to respond to the fire off Palestine Road near New Palestine Cemetery to bring it under control, she said. The firefighters had to battle the blaze until 11:30 p.m. and the Forestry Commission had to use its plough to contain the fire. Picayune Assistant Fire...